All Those Years Outside Looking In
by warriorhope
Summary: Written for kurt disney. Prompt Tangled.


For a minute, after he pulled into the Evans' driveway, Kurt just sat perfectly still. Then he sighed, and pulled out his phone to look at the text message his boyfriend had sent him again.

Come over. Need to show you something.

Not one word was spelled incorrectly. There was even punctuation and capitalization in it. Sam's texts were usually almost unreadable (even by the standards of texting), full of spelling mistakes and were usually missing words. When Kurt questioned him about it, Sam had just laughed and explained that his dyslexia meant that if he typed or wrote something quickly it would be harder to understand (even to him afterwards in many cases when it came to class notes). If he thought about what he was writing it usually came out clearer. So looking at the text Kurt doubted that Sam had a sudden impulse to show Kurt the glow in the dark stars stickers on his ceiling (though he suspected that had been a pretext for the make out session that followed. Not that he minded). Whatever it was, Sam seemed to be apprehensive about Kurt's reaction.

The phone started to hum 'Telephone', as Kurt looked down to see an incoming message.

dont cm thru the door cm thru window

Don't come through the door. Come through the window. Kurt menially translated. Sam must have seen the car from his bedroom, or hear it pull up at least. He had written this message with a reassuring amount of carelessness. Kurt did have to roll his eyes at the suggestion though. Sam's mother wasn't fond of him, to be sure (at first he had assumed that it was because her son was dating another boy, but Quinn had told him that she had gotten the same cold treatment when she was dating Sam, so it was more about losing her baby boy to another person)-but she had never denied him entry into the house. Also, if she just looked out the door, she'd be able to see his car and know he was there, so there was no real point to sneaking around. He wrote as much in the message he sent Sam back.

After a minute, a new text came up.

plz? mom wont let aynone in

Kurt sighed, but still got out of his car. He'd ask later.

Now, as Sam's room was on the first floor (the house was a bungalow in any case), it wasn't that hard to climb through the window. The window was even left open from him. He was surprised to see that his boyfriend wasn't waiting there to give him a hand in. Kurt just shrugged and gracefully climbed through the window into the poster plastered room.

Looking around the room, Kurt saw many things -including a DVD promotion cutout for Avatar (that Sam proudly claimed he had won a fight for against the other three people who worked at the video store), and a huge replica of the starship enterprise deck made out of Lego- but none of them were Sam.

Finally, he spotted him in the very corner of the room. He was wearing that old green hooded sweatshirt that Beiste had given the football team for training, with the hood up. Hearing Kurt come in, he turned around to reveal that he was wearing a baseball cap under the hood. It was strange. Sam hated to have his headed cover at all, and only wore hats off any kind when Mr. Schuester made them for a performance. He had told Kurt it was because they made his head sweat when he had asked.

"Hi." Sam said, biting his lower lip like he always did whenever he greeted Kurt.

"Hello, Sam. Why did you ask me over? Last minute prep for finals?" Kurt kinda of doubted it. He would've just came over to Kurt's house if he had wanted to study (it was much easier away from his mom and siblings-Finn was the only distraction there).

"Not really?"

Kurt didn't ask anymore questions. He just raised an eyebrow, as if to say "Then please tell me why you invited me over here? I don't have time to waste." Sam understood instantly, and took a deep breath.

"I'll show you, but you have to promise not to laugh."

"I won't." Kurt did wonder what could personally embarrass the boy who had started a Justin Bieber tribute band to get his 'girlfriend' back, but this was Sam.

Sam took another deep breath, and pulled down the hood while taking off his baseball cap at the same time.

Upon looking at it, Kurt was torn between wanting to bang his head against the wall, laugh, or just staring at Sam's head. He chose the latter option, since he had promised Sam that he wouldn't laugh, and if he hurt himself banging his head against the wall, Nationals would be doomed without his solo.

For as long as Kurt had known him, Sam's hair had never been shorter then the 'Rocky' cut. It had been various lengths, and shades of (dyed) blond, sometimes change two or three times in one week, but there was always lots of it. His bangs always seemed to get in his eyes. Kurt was forever pushing them away, when he was talking to Sam, but not anymore. Every strand of (fake) blond hair hair was gone leaving a relatively bare scalp with only a few stubbly bits left over.

"Sam, are you planning to dress up as Professor X for one of those conventions you're going to during the summer?" Kurt asked. Finally, when he had composed himself enough,

"No." Sam answered, smiling slightly at Kurt actually remembering one of the X-men characters.

"Then, is this because of another bet with Finn." The last one, a staring contest, had resulted in both Finn and Sam having to walk down the hallway in their underwear, because the judges (Puck and Artie) had "decided" they blinked at the same time.

Sam shook his head, wincing at the memory.

"So why?" That was all that was asked, but the implication, "so, why do you look like Puck's big-lipped twin?", was there. Kurt was curious because Sam certainly did not look happy about, or proud of his new haircut, which he would've if he thought it was a great idea. The question was why he had done it, if he wasn't happy about it?

"Do you remember two weeks ago before prom?" Sam asked sitting down on his bed and motioning for Kurt to sit beside him. "When you came over to help me with finals, and we ended having to watch _'_Tangled_'_with my sisters?"

Kurt nodded. Sam had asked him over to look over his papers for History and English (his ideas were good, but his spelling and grammar was horrible), and they had been interrupted by his little sisters ten minutes into it, who Sam apparently could not say no to (if only because of the tattling). Kurt wasn't sure what to think about it. It wasn't that he hated children, but he always felt weird around them. He worried that he'd end up talking down to them, and he used to hate it when people did to him (not his mom or dad, just other people). He considered leaving, but when he had tried to get up Sam had reached out and pulled his sleeve with an such an open smile, Kurt had wanted to stay. They ended up watching the movie, but during the second half Sam got weirdly silent, not perking up even when Kurt left for the night. At the time, he had worried. Sam got like that whenever he was worried about his body or anything really, and it usually ended up with him closing himself off from people (though it wasn't like Kurt was a stranger to this behavior himself). The next morning however, he seemed normal and was laughing with Finn and Brittany about something pertaining to her cat reading her diary, or maybe about Beiste being a chocolate turtle (he didn't care to find out). Relieved, Kurt had put the incident out of his mind.

"I remember. What does it have to do with this?"

"Well, I ended up kinda of identifying with her."

"What?" Kurt asked aloud wondering if he had heard wrong.

Sam sighed, obviously prepared for Kurt's reaction. "You know how she was not really blond either? How she was trapped in that tower, and wanted to get out and see other people and be herself, but was also afraid? And how in the end it was getting her hair cut off and turned back to it's natural color, that really freed her? I thought it could happen for me too, if I shaved it all away."

"Oh." Kurt said still processing everything. "Does that make me the Flynn guy?"

Sam shook his head almost immediately. "No, I'm him too..."

Kurt decided not to question that too much. "Why Sam though? Why didn't you just call me? I could've helped you dye your hair to match it's natural coloring. You didn't have to shave it off."

"I thought about that immediately afterwards," Sam admitted. "I wasn't really thinking clearly at the time. I figured I should cut it off, because that's what she did in the movie-well I guess Eugene did it, but whatever. I was just tired of waking up every morning to see that stupid bleached hair. It scares me. Sometimes, I think that everything is still the same way that it was months ago. That I'm still that guy who was dating Quinn, who acts like an asshole, and lies to everyone including himself. I really don't want to be that guy anymore. I thought by shaving my hair off, I could finally make a fresh start."

He looked down at the floor, and he seemed like he was about to break down. Kurt softened, and smiled slowly. He reached up to touch the top of Sam's head. Sam looked up startled by the sudden touch.

"It's not that bad. You look handsome actually," Kurt said, before he sighed "Of course, Mr. Schue will flip, Nationals are next week. Though I guess we could always use that wig, Puck wore during your Bieber phase."

"You don't think it was stupid?" He looked at Kurt directedly now, rather than at the wall or the floor.

"No, just ill-advised." Kurt squeezed his hands. Sam smiled the little shy smile he always did whenever Kurt told him that he wasn't stupid. "Oh and Sam?"

"What?"

"Did I ever tell you that I have a thing for brunets?"

Sam's facial expression switched from confused to jealous (probably remembering Finn and Blaine), to happy (when he realized what that line was from).

"It's actually dark blond-" He started to explain, but was cut off by Kurt kissing him.

Not much about hair, or _Tangled_was said after that.


End file.
